Prettin is a municipality in
WittenbergWittenberg is a district in the east of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Neighboring districts are Anhalt-Bitterfeld, the district-free city of Dessau-Roßlau, the districts of Potsdam-Mittelmark, Teltow-Fläming and Elbe-Elster in Brandenburg, and the district of Nordsachsen in the Free State of Saxony.-...
district in
Saxony-AnhaltSaxony-Anhalt is one of the sixteen Bundesländer that make up the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of , and a population of 2.45 million...
, and is a part of the
administrative community"Amt" is a type of administrative division of some northern European countries. It is generally larger than a municipality, and the term is thus roughly equivalent to a U.S. "township".-The Amt in Germany:...
(
Verwaltungsgemeinschaft) of
Annaburg-PrettinAnnaburg-Prettin is a Verwaltungsgemeinschaft in the district of Wittenberg, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Elbe, southeast of Wittenberg...
, whose seat is in the town of
AnnaburgAnnaburg is a small town in Wittenberg district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is part of the Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Annaburg-Prettin.- Constituent communities :Annaburg has two centres, one also called Annaburg, and the other Purzien.- History :...
.
The town lies about 30 km southeast of
WittenbergWittenberg, officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is a town in Germany in the Bundesland Saxony-Anhalt, on the Elbe River. It has a population of about 50,000....
and about 12 km northnorthwest of
TorgauTorgau is a town on the banks of the Elbe in northwestern Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district Nordsachsen.Outside Germany, the town is most well-known as the place where during the Second World War, United States Army forces coming from the west met with forces of the Soviet Union...
in the lowland on the
ElbeThe River Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It originates in the Krkonose Mountains of northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...
's east bank, west of the Annaburg Heath. This is, however, to a great extent a
BundeswehrThe Bundeswehr comprises the unified armed forces of Germany and their civil administration and procurement authorities...
troop drilling ground, and is therefore off limits.
Prettin is a municipality in
WittenbergWittenberg is a district in the east of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Neighboring districts are Anhalt-Bitterfeld, the district-free city of Dessau-Roßlau, the districts of Potsdam-Mittelmark, Teltow-Fläming and Elbe-Elster in Brandenburg, and the district of Nordsachsen in the Free State of Saxony.-...
district in
Saxony-AnhaltSaxony-Anhalt is one of the sixteen Bundesländer that make up the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of , and a population of 2.45 million...
, and is a part of the
administrative community"Amt" is a type of administrative division of some northern European countries. It is generally larger than a municipality, and the term is thus roughly equivalent to a U.S. "township".-The Amt in Germany:...
(
Verwaltungsgemeinschaft) of
Annaburg-PrettinAnnaburg-Prettin is a Verwaltungsgemeinschaft in the district of Wittenberg, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Elbe, southeast of Wittenberg...
, whose seat is in the town of
AnnaburgAnnaburg is a small town in Wittenberg district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is part of the Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Annaburg-Prettin.- Constituent communities :Annaburg has two centres, one also called Annaburg, and the other Purzien.- History :...
.
Geography and transportation
The town lies about 30 km southeast of
WittenbergWittenberg, officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is a town in Germany in the Bundesland Saxony-Anhalt, on the Elbe River. It has a population of about 50,000....
and about 12 km northnorthwest of
TorgauTorgau is a town on the banks of the Elbe in northwestern Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district Nordsachsen.Outside Germany, the town is most well-known as the place where during the Second World War, United States Army forces coming from the west met with forces of the Soviet Union...
in the lowland on the
ElbeThe River Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It originates in the Krkonose Mountains of northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...
's east bank, west of the Annaburg Heath. This is, however, to a great extent a
BundeswehrThe Bundeswehr comprises the unified armed forces of Germany and their civil administration and procurement authorities...
troop drilling ground, and is therefore off limits. West of the community runs the Federal Highway (
Bundesstraße) B 182, and to the north is the B 187. In the south, the community borders on
SaxonyThe Free State of Saxony is a federal state of Germany, located in the southeastern part of present-day Germany. It is the tenth-largest German state in area and the sixth largest in population , of Germany's sixteen states.Long in the heart of German-speaking Europe, Saxony became one of the new...
. Prettin is linked with the Saxon community of
DommitzschDommitzsch is a town in the district Nordsachsen, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany and is Saxony's northmost city. It lies on the left bank of the Elbe, 12 km northwest of Torgau and 31 km southeast of Wittenberg....
by a
ferryA ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...
on the Elbe.
History
Lying at an old river crossing in the Elbe valley, the first settlers in the Prettin area were
SlavsThe Slavic Peoples are an ethnic and linguistic branch of Indo-European peoples, living mainly in eastern and central Europe. From the early 6th century they spread from their original homeland to inhabit most of eastern Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans...
, and the area itself belonged to the Slavic domain of Nisizi. After the German
Burgward ("castle district"), which first crops up in one of
Otto I'sOtto I the Great , son of Henry I the Fowler and Matilda of Ringelheim, was Duke of Saxony, King of Germany, King of Italy, and "the first of the Germans to be called the emperor of Italy" according to Arnulf of Milan...
documents as "Pretimi", had passed in 1012 from Archbishop Dagino to the Church estate of
MagdeburgMagdeburg , the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, is situated at the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe. Emperor Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor, lived during most of his reign in the town and was buried in the cathedral after his death...
, and then by way of the County of Brehna in 1290 to the Dukes of Saxony-Wittenberg, Rudolf I of Saxony-Wittenberg built the so-called "Schlösschen" (little castle) about 1335. In this small hunting lodge, the Electress Elisabeth von Brandenburg, who had secretly given herself over to
EvangelicalProtestantism is a branch within Christianity, containing many denominations with some differing practices and doctrines, that principally originated in the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. It is considered to be one of the major divisions within Christianity, together with the Roman...
teachings, found refuge between 1536 and 1545 after the staunchly
CatholicThe word Catholic is derived from the Greek adjective , meaning "universal". In the context of Christian ecclesiology, it has a rich history and several usages. For some, the term "Catholic Church" refers to the church in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, made up of the Latin Rite and the 22...
Elector Joachim I of Brandenburg had threatened to have her walled up alive. Only after his death did she return to the capital. Some thirty years later, Elector August of Saxony had the Schlösschen torn down and the stones used to build Lichtenburg Castle, which centuries later would become infamous.
East of the townsite, about 1300, the Antonian Preceptorate of "Lichtenbergk" was founded, whose Preceptor General, Goswin von Orsoy became the first Chancellor of
Wittenberg UniversityThe Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg , also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg within Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. MLU offers German and English programmes leading to academic degrees such as B. A., B. Sc., M. A., M. Sc., Ph....
. The Antonian monastery of Lichtenbergk was witness to an historic occasion when in 1518,
Martin LutherMartin Luther changed the course of Western civilization by initiating the Protestant Reformation. As a priest and theology professor, he confronted indulgence salesmen with his The Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. Luther strongly disputed their claim that freedom from God's punishment of sin could...
and Georg Spalatin met in
Elector Frederick the Wise'sFrederick III, Elector of Saxony , also known as Frederick the Wise, was Elector of Saxony from 1486 to his death. Frederick was the son of Ernest, Elector of Saxony and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Albert III, Duke of Bavaria...
presence for consultations. After the discussion, the Elector decided on Luther's disposition in Wittenberg (the Elector always supported Luther). Two years after this came a dramatic discussion, in
Philipp MelanchthonPhilipp Melanchthon was a German reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, intellectual leader of the leader of the Lutheran Reformation, and a influential designer of educational systems...
's presence, between Luther and the Papal envoy
Karl von MiltitzKarl von Miltitz was a papal nuncio and a Mainz Cathedral canon.-Biography:He was born in Rabenau near Meißen and Dresden, his family stemming from the lesser Saxon nobility. He studied at Mainz, Trier, Cologne , and Bologna , but his deficient Latin reveals that he was not especially learned...
. He tried in vain to get Luther to recant, and the break with Rome was inescapable. Miltitz drowned in the river
MainThe Main is a river in Germany, 524 km long , and it is one of the more significant tributaries of the Rhine. The Main flows through the German states of Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Hesse...
on the way back to
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
. That Luther could have his discussions here shows how broadminded the Antonians were.
After much of the
monasteryMonastery , a term derived from the Greek word μοναστήριον, neut. of μοναστήριος - monasterios denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer Monastery (plural: monasteries), a term derived from the Greek word μοναστήριον, neut. of μοναστήριος - monasterios...
was burnt down in a fire in 1533, it was dissolved and its property put in a lordly domain's charge. For Elector August I of Saxony, this was a welcome opportunity to satisfy his wife's request and build a
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
palace on the former monastery lands between 1574 and 1582. She did not get to enjoy it for very long, though, dying of the
plaguePlague is a deadly infectious disease caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis . Plague is a zoonotic, primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas. Plague is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death and devastation it brought...
only three years later in 1585. After a period of decay, the palace blossomed once again under Electress Hedwig, who built the "Hedwigsburg", and who had been granted the palace as her "widow's seat" (
Witwensitz) after her husband
Christian II, Elector of SaxonyChristian II was Elector of Saxony from 1591 to 1611.He was born in Dresden, the eldest son of Christian I of Saxony and Sophie of Brandenburg....
died in 1611, whereupon she also found herself running the
Ämter"Amt" is a type of administrative division of some northern European countries. It is generally larger than a municipality, and the term is thus roughly equivalent to a U.S. "township".-The Amt in Germany:...
of Annaburg, Schweinitz (with Prettin and Lichtenburg), Seyda and Schlieben, even having a small army at her disposal. During the
Thirty Years' WarThe Thirty Years' War was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history. The war was fought primarily in Germany and at various points involved most of the countries of Europe...
in 1637, the former
DanishDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
princessPrincess, is the feminine form of prince . Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or his daughters....
managed to convince the
SwedishSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe...
commander in the region to spare the small town the usual destruction being wrought throughout the countryside by Swedish troops. Three years after Hedwig's death, however, Prettin was sacked by the Swedes. Later, Elector's widow Wilhelmine Ernestine and her sister Anna Sophie of Denmark (August II the Strong's mother, who raised her offspring here) moved into the Lichtenburg, which ceased once and for all to be a widow's seat upon the former's death in 1717.
Back in the 16th century, there were not 800 inhabitants in Prettin. After a short time being part of the newly minted
Kingdom of SaxonyThe Kingdom of Saxony , lasting between 1806 and 1918, was an independent member of a number of historical confederacies in Napoleonic through post-Napoleonic Germany. From 1871 it was part of the German Empire. It became a Free state in the era of Weimar Republic in 1918 after the end of World War...
, this town on the Elbe had to be ceded to
PrussiaPrussia was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries this state had substantial influence on German and European history...
, thanks to Napoleon (1807). Even today, the Lichtenburg with its palace church from 1581 is an imposing Renaissance creation that was at first a widow's seat until 1811 when the empty ruins were turned into a prison, later, from 1933 to 1939 into a
NaziNazism, known officially in German as National Socialism , is the totalitarian ideology and practices of the Nazi Party or National Socialist German Workers’ Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.Nazism is often considered...
concentration campLichtenburg was a Nazi concentration camp, housed in a Renaissance castle in Prettin, near Wittenberg in eastern Germany. Along with Sachsenburg, it was among the first to be built by the Nazis, and was operated by the SS from 1933 to 1939. It held as many as 2000 male prisoners from 1933 to 1937...
, and later still, after the women were transferred to
Ravensbrück concentration campRavensbrück or Ravensbrueck was a notorious women's concentration camp during World War II, located in northern Germany, 90 km north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück ....
, into a
Waffen-SSThe Waffen-SS was the combat arm of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside the Wehrmacht Heer regular army, but was never formally part of it...
materiel office. During East German times, the Schladitz
detergentA detergent is a material intended to assist cleaning. The term is sometimes used to differentiate between soap and other surfactants used for cleaning...
factory was located there.
Personalities
- Otto Karl Bachmann (1877-1954), who in 1927 became the first KPD
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period...
mayor of a German town (Oelsnitz in Saxony's VogtlandkreisThe Vogtlandkreis is a Landkreis in the southwest of the Free State of Saxony, Germany, at the borders to Thuringia, Bavaria, and the Czech Republic. Neighboring districts are Hof, Saale-Orla, Greiz, Zwickau and Erzgebirgskreis...
district).
See also
- Lichtenburg (concentration camp)
Lichtenburg was a Nazi concentration camp, housed in a Renaissance castle in Prettin, near Wittenberg in eastern Germany. Along with Sachsenburg, it was among the first to be built by the Nazis, and was operated by the SS from 1933 to 1939. It held as many as 2000 male prisoners from 1933 to 1937...